What software do you use to open/present Powerpoint pptx files created on Windows? I tested LibreOffice and OnlyOffice. The latter has good compatibility with Word, but in PowerPoint it is disappointing - layout is totally unpredictable in many place. LibreOffice is a somehow better, but still for example equations can be rendered slightly different, taking more space, and breaking layout on specific slides. I have emergency VM when I need 100% compatibility, but I use it more for editing, doing presentation with it is not comfortable. Unluckily in current workflow, I cannot avoid using files from Windows computers, so I have to work corss-platform. Do you have your own tricks for this?
#PowerPoint compatibility issues
mental wigeon
orchid grail
Hi Dorregard. I can understand that mess you've gone yourself into.
I've used OnlyOffice primarily for my stuff. For context, I am a secretary for two terms. I do use documents, slideshows and spreadsheets.
For the most part, OnlyOffice seems fine when it comes to slideshows.
In cases where it doesn't, it's usually on animation, gradients, custom shapes, and fonts.
So my thing, I don't use animation or transitions. I don't use gradients either, just lower alpha if I have to.
As for fonts, it's an easy job. But since you mentioned it seems to work fine on LO... that's weird.
While you're on the Microsoft platform, there's the Office 365 on web. That should at least be fine, though I feel it's like a gateway drug.
As for me, I'm lucky I use Google's ecosystem. Google Docs compatibility seems to be fine for just about anything I've encountered so far.
And if you're collaborating with people and stuff like that, I do suggest you explore those two.
Though I prefer GD. I find O365 a PITA. The next-best solution you can go with is set up a VM thingy.
There's Winboat and some similar stuff, though I can't personally vouch for that.
mental wigeon
Thank you for the answer! I opened the same presentation in OO and LO, and LO was closer to correct layout. I do not have any custom animations, custom shapes, etc. In LO the problem was mostly with equations, so as long as the slide does not include any, it is more or less rendered correctly. In OO I don't know what was the problem but even text fields tended to have different size sometimes, or at least this is how it was looking like. So as far as in the case of Word files, OO is great, in PowerPoint I cannot say the same. I will take a look at WinBoat. Currently I just have full VM in Gnome Boxes, but being able to run just selected app in GUI, not full Windows graphical instance, would be nice workaround. I have to investigate this
mental wigeon
It seems that WinBoat use FreeRDP and Docker which seems to be security weakness if the computer is not over router NAT or something similar. I'm not full convinced if it is good solution in this case
orchid grail
Understandably so
I have since gave up on that actually lol, so I don't really have much to say
That's why I predominantly moved over to Google Workspace
hot turtle
can try WPS OFFICE.
see the slideshow thing and other info: https://www.wps.com/office/linux/
orchid grail
Oh yeah, WPS. I tend to forget about that. Thanks Stunner.
mental wigeon
That's my plan B. So far I found out you can set docker rootless, so if it will work without exposing outside it maybe I can give it a try first
mental wigeon
So far WPS did nice. It recognized missing fonts for equation, and list by name so I was able to install it, what seems to fix the biggest problem in LO which cannot do this and broke layout on equations
And for any that may be curious- Winboat cannot work with rootless docker, and it exposes a lot of ports potentially to outside in root mode, so it does not look safe to me. I decided to drop this idea, at list currently.
hot turtle
you can install ms-ttf-corefonts package if missing some standard Word ones
mental wigeon
I did it earlier, but this package not cover all modern fonts (aptos etc.), so I had to copy it manually to font folder and reload cache with fc-cache -f -v
faint linden
Try OpenOffice
mental wigeon
Isn't it basically the same as LibreOffice? I mean Open is older, but Libre is like better supported fork
orchid grail
Please don't. All of us volunteers here speak against OpenOffice.
To give you a context why, well, it's basically dead.
OpenOffice and LibreOffice should be pretty close as it gets.
Except that OpenOffice hasn't really been well-maintained for quite sometime now
They still have long-standing CVEs yet to be addressed
And it's pretty terrible as it gets
faint linden
It was merely a suggestion on my part
mental wigeon
regarding WPS - is there any way to bypass units/decimal separators? I have strange combinations: units in inches, and decimal as comma. I would prefer cm / dot
mental wigeon
NVM, units can be changed in settings, and decimal separator follows system language (not region as I initially tought)
tight mountain
I'm unsure how you're using Powerpoint but if it's through an account at your workplace you might find it's an Office 365 subscription so Powerpoint through the online portal should work.
I'm moving my workflow away from M$ eco system and the whole Office thing has been one of the trickiest parts. Even though I have purposefully kept things simple I've still had some headaches. For the most part I've found exporting Powerpoints as JPEG served me okay but, of course, you lose any animations if you put them in. Another alternative I did for one PP was to export it as a film file. I could then chop the bits up I needed and embed the videos. But ultimately it's sort of convinced me to keep everything simple from now on.
Hopefully there is something in my reply which helps. Good luck
mental wigeon
If there would be some way to open local files in online Office 365 directly from Nemo it would be solution. But without it this workflow is not smooth, especially if you jump between files.